For many liberals, before The Al Franken Show and Air America, radio was an alien landscape lacking their point of view.

So, when Franken's year-old talk radio show came to Seattle yesterday for its first live broadcast here, much of the audience could relate to one of the station's slogans -- "Finally, a view from the left."

"I've never listened to talk radio before in my life," said Laurie Carlsson, 26, a musician, jewelry artist and barista who now listens to Air America several times a week. "It was a missing link."

Kim Wrzeszcz of Edmonds said she often listens to Franken. "I sometimes get really down -- like everything's going right wing," she said. "It's happiness and hope for me, because before 1090 AM, almost all the shows were so conservative."

Her 18-year-old son Sam Wrzeszcz added: "Al Franken really discusses issues and I think that's what politics is all about in our country. And, he's so smart and quick."

The rest of the 800-strong crowd had nothing but hearty applause and two standing ovations for Franken, a "Saturday Night Live" alumnus and best-selling author.

"Wow, it's really great to be here. Love this town. Reminds me of Minnesota," he said to warm up the crowd for his three-hour program. "If you have a cell phone, the only reason to have it on is if you desperately, desperately need a liver."

There was rarely much pause between jokes.

One of the most frequent targets was Jim West, the mayor of Spokane and opponent of gay civil rights who is facing allegations of molesting boys in the 1970s, as well as charges that he misused his office to secretly pursue gay sex. "It turns out that some of their meanest anti-gay leaders aren't just mean and anti-gay, but they're gay!" Franken said, drawing loud laughter.

Indeed, though the topics discussed ranged from the Patriot Act to President Bush being discomfited by "unscripted" questions from Dutch students during a news conference yesterday to Tom DeLay's legislative tactics, more of the air time was probably devoted to gay rights than any other subject.

Franken's guests included King County Executive Ron Sims, Rep. Jay Inslee and Dan Savage, editor of The Stranger.

Prominent in the discussion was Microsoft's recent headline-making withdrawal of support of a gay rights bill in the state Legislature because of alleged pressure from local pastor Ken Hutcherson. The company reversed its stance late last week.

Franken also talked about gay marriage. "Here's my stance on gay marriage. I never figured out how gay marriage is a threat to heterosexual marriage. I look at a gay male couple, for example, and I don't go, 'Boy, that looks good,' " he said.

He said divorce is the real threat and joked about creating a "three strikes" law for marriage. "If you get married and divorced three times, you can't get married again. You need some sort of waiver," Franken said. "So, Rush Limbaugh wouldn't have been allowed to get married again."

While discussing gay marriage, Franken proffered a riddle to Sims. "Which is harder -- being black or gay?" Franken asked.

"I'm not --" Sims replied, laughing. Franken came back at him: "I know you're not the mayor of Spokane."

Then Franken shared the punch line: "It's harder being gay -- because you don't have to tell your parents you're black."

Sims said he hopes and expects to lose a lawsuit brought by several gay plaintiffs against King County for denying them marriage licenses under the state constitution's equal-rights protection clause.

Inslee, who represents the 1st Congressional District, talked about his New Apollo Energy Project, a bill to direct energy policy to find innovative ways to meet energy needs and decrease global warming.

When Franken joked with him that some doubt humans have an impact on global warming, Inslee used his funny bone, replying, "Some of my Republican friends -- they want to argue about gravity too."

Franken fired back: "Gravity's just a theory too."

Inslee quipped: "If you watched the House recently, you might question whether evolution is still going on."

Franken and co-host Katherine Lanpher also did several recurring bits, including the "Oy, Oy, Oy" show, in which "Old Al," a New York Jew, laments the state of current affairs; staged radio skits on John Bolton, the president's mercurial nominee for U.N. ambassador; and sound bites from Bill O'Reilly's show.

After one clip in which O'Reilly denigrates liberals for their lack of values, Franken shot back: "I didn't know that phone sex was a traditional value," referring to O'Reilly's alleged racy chats with a former member of his staff. She brought a sexual harassment suit against him that was settled out of court.

Franken said Air America is now heard on 57 affiliates nationally, including Binghamton, N.Y., which was added yesterday. He said about 2.5 million people listen to the station, not including those who listen online.

Even with Seattle's reputation as a liberal oasis, talk radio here is still largely dominated by the conservative side of the dial.

Right-wing station KVI, and KTTH, which airs Rush Limbaugh, win the ratings battle, but KPTK/1090 AM has been broadcasting Air America only since October.

"We're within striking distances of much more established radio stations like KIRO, and that's very encouraging," program director Jim Trapp said.

It is listeners like Carolyn Gleason who are making that happen. Gleason, a public health consultant, listens one or two hours a day, five days a week.

"It's comforting to hear my point of view on the radio, to know that others feel the same," she said. "You get plenty of people railing against 'those liberals.' There was a void."

Trapp says the station's audience is around 85,900 and has almost doubled since it switched from country music to liberal talk radio. The bulk of its daytime listeners spend seven hours per week listening to KPTK, making it one of the top stations in the area by that measure.

That would include listeners like the Beninger family of four.

"Our family listens to the station at least six hours a day," said 13-year-old Vigo Beninger, of Tacoma, who got a waiver from school to attend, along with his sister Bayonne, 11, and his parents, Kevin and Anita Beninger.

"We really believe that civics is a very important part of society," Anita Beninger said.

Kevin Beninger, 44, added: "It's an alternative to the corporatized media. ... Air America has a real sense of being on the front edge of what's happening."